The invention relates to a needle attachment for a surgical sewing instrument with a proximal-side connector for connecting to a sewing instrument, with a hollow shaft-like body, which has a curved hollow needle on the distal side, whereby a thread or a thread bundle can be guided through the needle attachment.
The invention further relates to a surgical sewing instrument having attached such a needle attachment.
Such a needle attachment and such a surgical sewing instrument to be connected with the needle attachment is known from the catalog “Arthroscopy, Sports Medicine, Spinal Surgery”, 2nd edition January 2005, page 106 (Bulletin ART-SHF 14A) by Karl Storz GmbH & Co. KG, Tuttlingen, Germany. This surgical sewing instrument has an approximately rod-like body, through which a surgical thread is guided from proximal to distal to a distal suture attachment. A recess, along which a section of the thread is guided exposed, is left open in the body of the sewing instrument.
This surgical sewing instrument can be connected to various needle attachments, distinguished in particular by variously bent and formed curved hollow needles.
For this the needle attachment has a hollow shaft-like body which proximally has a connector for connecting to the surgical sewing instrument. The surgical thread or the thread bundle guided in through the body of the surgical sewing instrument is also guided in through a needle attachment and exits at a tip of the curved hollow needle. In the case of surgical threads which are designed as relatively stiff, but yet flexible bodies it is no problem to push the thread through the curved or sometimes even volute hollow needle until it exits at the distal end in the region of the tip of the hollow needle. The thread must however exhibit a certain stiffness in a longitudinal direction so that it can be pushed through the relatively long stretch of the needle attachment, approximately 150 mm. For this, it was established to equip the lumen of the hollow needle with a circular cross-section, which corresponds approximately to the cross-section of the thread.
In a further development of the sewing technology with sewing materials in particular which are inclined to splice, the distal end of the thread or thread bundle was provided with a relatively stiff end section, for example by a sleeve being pressed onto this end or the end region being stuck. With many sewing techniques the thread should not comprise monofilament, rather multifilament, where the ends of the multifilaments must be connected or stuck together by such a stiff sleeve for handling purposes.
With curved needles, in particular in highly curved needles, it is now no longer possible to push the stiff end sections, where required measuring several centimetres, through a hollow body, whereof the lumen corresponds approximately to the outer diameter. The stiffened end section would become jammed in such a curve or become wedged and could no longer be distally pushed.
Relatively large-lumen hollow needles must be provided to make sufficient space available for the stiff end section, so that these can move round the curve. This results in a relatively thick needle which causes a large-size puncture site in the tissue to perform the sewing procedure.
But this is in contrast to the general aim in surgery of carrying out such a procedure with the least possible trauma.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a remedy in this case and develop a needle attachment to the extent where it also enables threads to be pushed through with a stiffened thread end, with the smallest possible structure.